To bring you the best content on our sites and applications, Meredith partners with third party advertisers to serve digital ads, including personalized digital ads. Those advertisers use tracking technologies to collect information about your activity on our sites and applications and across the Internet and your other apps and devices.

You always have the choice to experience our sites without personalized advertising based on your web browsing activity by visiting the DAA’s Consumer Choice page, the NAI's website, and/or the EU online choices page, from each of your browsers or devices. To avoid personalized advertising based on your mobile app activity, you can install the DAA’s AppChoices app here. You can find much more information about your privacy choices in our privacy policy. Even if you choose not to have your activity tracked by third parties for advertising services, you will still see non-personalized ads on our sites and applications.

By clicking continue below and using our sites or applications, you agree that we and our third party advertisers can:· transfer your data to the United States or other countries; and· process and share your data so that we and third parties may serve you with personalized ads, subject to your choices as described above and in our privacy policy.

Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman Talks Confidence, Leadership, and Taekwondo

Adena Friedman, CEO of NasdaqGetty Images

Susie Gharib

May 2nd, 2018

Adena Friedman started at Nasdaq as an intern right out of business school and 20 years later she became CEO. When she got the top job a year ago, she became the first woman to head a major global stock exchange. Nasdaq, based in New York, is the second-largest exchange in the world by market capitalization, behind only the New York Stock Exchange.

Speaking to Fortune, she says, “I started very early in my career saying ‘yes’ to a lot of things. I just never let anything stand in my way to taking the next opportunity, to saying ‘yes’ to the next assignment, and making sure they saw me as a go-to person.”

Her success also comes from the lessons she learned in the taekwondo studio. Friedman, who earned a black belt, says this Korean martial art also played a role in building her leadership skills.

More from FORTUNE

“I really believe that taekwondo teaches you self reliance. If you are looking about how to get better, it’s only on you to improve,” Friedman explains. “And I think that self reliance is an important skill for anyone navigating the corporate world.”